Corvallis-ASG-How to Organize

Welcome

How to Organize and Work with Your School District
Summer 2000

The following steps are suggested for working with your local school disrict to provide the level of Autism Spectrum Disorder services expected by parents:

Put together a sub committee of parents who are motivated to be a working group for this project. Meet and put together a list of questions for response and discussion. The purpose of this list is to give structure to parents' experiences and concerns. This process will help you begin to identify unmet needs of ASD children and future discussion points with the school district.
Invite parents ASD children to a meeting where they will have an opportunity to respond to previously determined & distributed questions. Also invite to this meeting your state senator and representatives and an advocate experienced in administration, or school board trustee or community organization. Arrange for one of these more neutral advocates to chair the meeting and appoint a good note takers.
Sub committee and advocates prepare a summary report and from this report cull out points for discussion with school district & regional services representatives.
Make personal contact with the school district personnel in charge of services for ASD children. Explain your purpose, that you have a list of points for discussion & resource information and that after they have a chance to review this information you would like to meet them.
The sub committee should do specific planning on how the meeting will be conducted who will speak, etc. For our meeting, for the first 30 mins. we gave background information about the group, Autism, & a elaboration on the points of discussion. An equal amount of time was for school district response and sharing information & resources. The remainder of the time was spent clarifying, asking questions and planning how to do follow-up work together and a timeline for this work.
In the words of one of the "Corvallis 8", MaryJo Weaver, TOGETHER WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE, but it takes endurance and patience. If you need help or encouragement- let us know!

MaryJo Weaver (541) 757-2820

Nancy Vanderpool (541) 753-0235

Internet: http://members.home.nethttp://www.teleport.com/~aso/corvallis//

Email: watatown@yahoo.com

MaryJo Weaver 727 NW 32nd Corvallis, OR 97330 (541) 757-2820 watatown@yahoo.com

Inclusion of information about Autism organizations, providers, publications, services, programs and products on our web site does NOT constitute any agreement, sponsorship, endorsement or warranty of any kind by the Corvallis Autism Support Group. We offer this information as a helpful resource tool to families and professionals.